Ville de Saint Denis
St Denis is located in the northern suburbs of Paris, and has a population of around 100,000 people. It is home to both the famous Saint Denis Basilica and France's national stadium, le Stade de France. St Denis has been working on improving the sustainability performance of its activities for the last 10 years.
Sustainable Procurement Activities
The City began implementing its sustainable procurement policy in 2001. In 2005, the City established an environmental division which was set up to work with municipal services to ensure that environmental concerns were taken into account in their activities. As a result, the City was awarded ISO 14001 certification in 2006 for its central administration in the City Hall, food preparation in the main kitchen (including preparing meals for children) and management of its municipal assets. Many other projects have also been implemented, including the construction of HQE standard (Haute Qualité Environnementale) schools, the introduction of organic food in canteens and the recovery of waste paper from the City Hall.
Eco-responsibility of municipal services is a prerequisite for a successful policy in sustainable procurement. The City has therefore introduced clauses or environmental criteria into its markets.
In the last few years a number of sustainable procurement activities have been carried out by the authority including the:
- Purchase of wooden furniture without the use of exotic woods and hazardous chemicals;
- Purchase of energy efficient and quieter photocopiers;
- Purchase of clean-technology vehicles;
- Purchase of organic, local and/or fair trade products in school lunches such as bread, yogurt, sugar, chocolate, apples, pears, chicken, etc;
- Purchase of recycled paper;
- Choice of environmentally friendly vehicle suppliers;
- Reservation of certain contracts to protected workshops (companies staffed by disabled people) – including certain contracts for: paper recycling, printing of postcards, cleaning and catering.
At present, St Denis is working on other steps including the purchase of sustainable office supplies such as notebooks made from recycled paper, natural rubber erasers, caseless packaging and non-disposable pens.
At times, however, the City encountered difficulties in adapting to certain markets as sustainable procurement can not only be irrelevant in certain markets, it also lacked an overall general strategy. As a result, the City developed a more efficient system in 2008 that had one person with overall responsibility for identifying and monitoring contracts, a working group that brought together buyers from different services, a sustainable procurement steering group including the management of publicly supported markets, an environmental department, gave opportunities to the disabled, while at the same time supported the welfare of its staff.
The sustainable procurement policy has since been defined with the following guidelines:
- Purchasing environmentally friendly goods;
- Purchasing goods where economic savings can be made;
- Purchasing from small and medium enterprises;
- Purchasing from people in financial difficulty;
- Purchasing from workers with disabilities;
- Purchasing from ethical sources and suppliers that provide good working conditions for staff.
The City has also grouped suppliers into various market categories. In each market, it defines if it will be part of a mandatory contract or a voluntary criterion as determined by a questionnaire. This way, all purchasers will have to commit to sustainable procurement and a strategy for monitoring and evaluation will be defined.
